


beware of girls in red

by notahotlibrarian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Time Travel, Timeline Divergence, Women Being Awesome, arthurian legends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-02-26 21:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18725497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notahotlibrarian/pseuds/notahotlibrarian
Summary: Men fight wars on a grand stage.  Women fight wars in the shadows.While a war is building between two wizards, a secret sisterhood of witches does what it can - what it must - to maintain the balance of magic in the world.  When Hermione receives a chance to go back and stop Voldemort - the first time around - she takes it without hesitation, leaping in head-first like the Gryffindor stereotype she rarely acts like.But the thing about jumping in head-first is that you usually end up landing arse-over-teakettle somewhere in the process.   Unfortunately for Hermione, she lands right in the middle of a pack of Marauders...





	1. sudden things rearrange (and this whole world seems like a new place)

There were many stories that circulated among the halls and towers and dungeons and classrooms of Hogwarts about the self-styled Marauders.  The four mischievous boys had filled a firecracker-shaped hole left by the even more infamous Prewett twins after their second year, and were set to outgrow their predecessors’ legends by the time they graduated.

However, a few of their exploits were only known to a select handful of people.  A certain redheaded girl, eventually, and later a messy-haired boy with her eyes.  Another pair of redheaded twins, eerily similar to their namesake predecessors. A twinkling, plotting headmaster and a secretly fond deputy headmistress. Another redheaded boy and a bushy-haired girl.

And one story was held in the deepest, blackest part of a grudge-carrying Slytherin.

A prank gone terribly wrong. A disaster narrowly averted.  A life debt owed. A friendship slightly fractured, leaving holes for treacherous seeds to grow.  

In one version of that story, the singular member of the Marauders who plays the prank is not punished.  The headmaster sees a potential - for what, you might ask - and the boy slinks back to the dormitory with his tail tucked between his legs, only somewhat chastised.  The outraged Slytherin is forced into silence, and eventually, events unfold that leave one of the Marauders dead, another thought to be, the third sunken into a deep depression, and the fourth, player of the prank, in Azkaban.

This is not that version of the story.

The sands of time turn, and fate twists in a different direction.

This is another, different version of that story.  Instead of Sirius Black playing the prank, it is Peter Pettigrew.  Instead of the prankster getting off with a slap on the wrists, he is expelled.  The Slytherin is still spelled to secrecy, a friendship is still cracked, and the boy who is occasionally a werewolf is still alone on that final moon of their fifth year at Hogwarts.

Well...almost alone.

 

* * *

 

**June 1976**

It was the final full moon of the self-styled Marauders’ fifth year, but Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were definitely  _ not  _ spending it together, like they had planned to do.  Due to the actions of a lovestruck stag, a snivelling Slytherin, an angry flower of a girl, a lying rat, and a loyal black dog, there was now only an angry werewolf, who somewhere, in the back of his mind, housed a terrified boy.

The wolf howled and raged against the walls of his cage.  He could smell the fear in the air, with such a sharp human spice to it, and he longed to follow that scent.  Moony threw himself at the boarded-up windows of the shack with no regard for the body he shared with the boy, and eventually, one of the windows cracked enough that he could wriggle his way out.

He started running, following the fear that had sent him in a frenzy, but froze mid-lope as another scent overtook his nostrils.

Something new was in the Forbidden Forest.  Something wild, and terrifying, and sweet. Something that called to both the wolf and the boy, promising them both their every desire - for revenge and companionship, for answers and freedom.

Moony started to follow the scent, but just as he reached the edge of the clearing that held the mysterious new thing, a large black dog came barrelling into his side, knocking him off of the path.

The wolf snapped his jaws at the dog.  A hate that wasn’t entirely Moony’s drove the wolf towards the black dog in an attempt to pin him to the ground and make him  _ yield _ .

“Now boys,” a soft voice called out from the clearing just beyond them.  “Play nice,” she commanded.

The two sprang apart, bodies pulled by something that wasn’t entirely their own volition.  Remembering his original goal, the wolf loped into the clearing, with the black dog cautiously following behind him, a few paces back.

A girl stood in the middle of the open space, more wild than the wolf and the forest that surrounded them.  Her small form was covered in a tattered red dress, a large tear in the skirt revealing the lean, muscled length of a thigh with a wand strapped to it.  She was leaning on a large staff carved out of vinewood, nearly as tall as she was and bound with silver in the middle. Tangled curls waved around her face, filled with leaves and other debris and sparking with magic.

It was her face that held the attention of both the wolf and the dog, though.  Underneath those messy curls was a heart shaped face, its sweetness at odds with the overly sharp canines that poked slyly out of her open mouth and the dangerous glowing wolf-gold of her eyes.

The werewolf imperative to bite and infect sent Moony leaping towards her, teeth bared.  Before the dog could even attempt to knock the wolf off-course again, the girl batted the wolf away with her staff.

Girl and wolf circled each other slowly, the wolf growling and the girl dragging her staff against the ground.  “Stop that, Mr. Moony,” the girl implored. “You know me. We’re connected, you and I, in more ways than one.”

The wolf momentarily paused, studying the girl.  Something about her scent was familiar to him, though he’d never smelled it before.  Her golden eyes bored into his matching ones, warily watching as they both continued to circle around each other.

Unnoticed by either, the black dog at the edge of the trees watched the two wild things in the woods.

When they had completed a full circle, the girl slammed the butt of her staff against the ground.  A shockwave of magic reverberated through the forest, filling the air with the sharp tang of ozone, the heavy, staticy feeling of lightning, and the heady scent of wild honey and poppies.  A ring of bluebell flames surround the wolf and the girl, leaving the dog alone outside the circle.

Holding onto her staff, the girl tiredly lowered herself to sit on the ground.  “You don’t scare me, Mr. Moony,” she said quietly as she laid her staff on the ground.

The wolf sat back on its haunches and tilted its head inquisitively at the girl.  Something about that name -  _ Moony  _ \- and the way she said it made him pause.  It was...fond. Full of warmth. Almost teasing in its affection.

The girl leaned forward and wrapped her hands around one knee.  With a sickening crunch, she popped it back into place.

The dog, still watching from beyond the circle, whined.

The wolf spotted marks on her shoulders, and he crept forward to inspect the familiar scars.  The girl lifted her heavy fall of hair, twisting it up so Moony could see the grouping of claw marks that trailed up each shoulder blade.

Beneath the honey-and-poppy scent of the girl, Moony could detect the faintest whiff of dirt-and-blood, a terribly tainted smell that lingered ever so faintly on his skin, too.  

Moony licked one of the scars, and the girl gave a surprised giggle.  He curled up around her side, and the girl tilted over to rest her head on his ribs.

Unnoticed by either the wolf or the girl, the black dog watched their interactions.  When the two curled up together, he sprinted away, barking for a stag that was not there.

 

* * *

 

Sirius burst into the Gryffindor common room, panting like a dog in a summer heatwave.  Ignoring the confused and judgmental looks from his housemates - they’d all heard about his part in the stunt by the lake earlier, and the subsequent loss of house points - he dashed up the stairs that led to his dormitory.

“Prongs! Prongs!” he yelled.

“What?” James said irritably as he threw things haphazardly into his trunk.

“There’s a girl in the forest,” Sirius panted as he bent over and braced his hands on his knees.

“We nearly get expelled, Peter  _ is  _ expelled, and you come in here yelling about some girl?” James gave him a disgusted look.  “Godric’s ghost!”

Sirius waved his hands impatiently.  “No, you’re not listening! There’s a  _ girl  _ in the  _ Forbidden Forest _ .”

“So? I heard you the first time.”

“So?!  _ Moony  _ is in the woods!”

“Seriously?” Before Sirius could answer, James groaned.  “Sod off, Padfoot. How the bloody hell did Moony get into the woods? You were supposed to keep an eye on him while I appealed to McGonagall about Peter!”

“He broke the boards off one of the windows about the time I got back to the shack and took off at a dead sprint for the woods,” Sirius explained.  

“C’mon then,” James said, grabbing a silvery cloak out of the depths of his messy trunk.  “We’ve already saved one person from being mauled, might as well make it two for two.”

“D’you think…” Sirius said hesitantly.  James paused in the doorway to their dorm to turn back and look at his friend.  “D’you think we should maybe tell someone?” he mumbled.

“Like who?”

“Minnie, maybe?”

The two boys hurried down the stairs.  “Maybe. She’s not happy with us over the situation with Sni- Severus,” James corrected himself.  “She might believe us, or she might just feed us to the giant squid and be done with it,” James said, half-joking and half-serious.

The sharp voice of the professor in question made both boys freeze at the bottom of the stairs.  James hurriedly shoved his invisibility cloak behind his back, and Sirius moved a half-step closer to James to help hide the mess of shimmering fabric.  “And just where do you two think you are going?” Professor McGonagall asked them.

“Um…” they stuttered in unison.

McGonagall stared at her two formerly most favorite students over the tops of her square spectacles.  “If I see so much as a finger outside this tower before it is time to board the train tomorrow, I will personally make sure you join your  _ friend _ Mr. Pettigrew,” she hissed disdainfully.

“Yes ma’am,” James said, wide-eyed.

“But-” Sirius said, his words cut off with a grunt as James elbowed him in the ribs.  “Yes ma’am,” he echoed reluctantly.

“Now, off to bed for the both of you,” she said, pointing a finger at the staircase.  Under her relentless stare, the two boys slowly turned and trudged back up the stairs.

Somewhere outside the tower, a wolf howled.

 

* * *

**May 1999**

The world outside Hogwarts’ hallowed walls was quiet, almost peaceful - so different from a year ago that day.  A full moon shone through the narrow windows in the fourth floor corridor, its silvery light caressing the figure of a woman in a beautiful red ball gown pacing below the stairwell to Gryffindor tower, the click of her heels audible over the muffled sounds of the a party going on a few floors below her.  

The first annual Remembrance Ball was being held in the repaired Great Hall, a mere ten minute walk from the tower, but Hermione Granger did not want to attend it.  She had the dress, the heels, the nice hair, the inspiring speech and the polite smile all prepared, but the act of simply walking down the stairs to the Great Hall seemed to be beyond her capabilities.

“This is so illogical,” she muttered to herself as she paced the empty hallway at the base of the Gryffindor Tower.

“What is?” an unexpected voice asked from the darkened end of the hallway.

Hermione whirled around, wand at the ready and a hex at the tip of her tongue.  A familiar figure melted out of the shadows, and one of Hermione’s mentors walked towards her.

“Oh, it’s you,” Hermione said tiredly.

Madam Moira Stuart, nee McGonagall, second-in-charge in the Department of Mysteries and longest-serving currently active Unspeakable, arched an eyebrow at the young woman.  “And here I am with something that might interest you,” she said, lazily waving her wand and casting anti-eavesdropping wards around them.

“And what is that?” Hermione asked, arching an eyebrow back as she parted the slit the skirt of her red dress and slid her wand into the holster strapped to one thigh.

“An offer,” Unspeakable Stuart said, pulling a small box out of the pocket of her robes and tossing it to the other woman.

Hermione gingerly opened the box to reveal a tarnished silver necklace, barely glinting in the low light, resting on top of a tightly folded piece of parchment.  She pulled the necklace out, revealing a long chain with a small silver medallion on it. She looked closer at the medallion, thumb running over the outline of an apple tree, with a sword and wand crossed over the trunk, etched on one side as she flipped it over and tried to translate the runes on the back.

“Put it on,” Unspeakable Stuart commanded, and Hermione complied, tucking the medallion under the neckline of her dress.

“Is this an offer from your department?” Hermione asked uncertainly, finger tapping against the parchment still folded in the box.

Unspeakable Stuart shook her head.  “Hell no,” she said. “My department is still a fuckin’ shitshow from the war, and I don’t trust that you wouldn’t end up dead within a week,” she said bluntly.  “No, this is something else entirely. Have you ever heard of the Daughters of Avalon?”

“It was a secret society of women supposedly dating back to the time of Merlin,” Hermione said puzzledly.  “Supposedly founded by Morgan le Fay and a group of witches she handpicked. For what ends, no one really knows.  The existence of the group has mostly been discredited by magical historians, though a few still argue that it once existed.”

“It still exists,” Unspeakable Stuart said as she glanced at the watch pinned to her robes.  “I wish I had time to explain more to you, but suffice to say that you have been chosen to join our ranks. Min and I were going to explain all of this to you after you graduated, but due to unexpected circumstances such as my impending arrest by Aurors, we have to do this now,” the older woman said blithely as she took Hermione’s arm and started leading her down towards the Great Hall.

“Wait, what?” Hermione said, digging in her heels.  “What are you talking about? Why are you being arrested?”

Unspeakable Stuart opened her mouth to explain further, but a magically amplified voice boomed up from the first floor.  “Unspeakable Stuart, you are under arrest for violating the secrecy pact of the Department of Mysteries, for theft of restricted objects from the Department of Mysteries, and for the usage of restricted magics.  Surrender your wand and any stolen items, or prepare to be brought down by Aurors!”

“This is it, Hermione,” the older woman said as she pulled out her wand.  “Do you want to go along with the Ministry bullshit, or do you want to fix everything and give Harry the life he deserves?”

Hermione did not hesitate.  She would do anything for Harry.  

She pulled out her wand again, and together the two witches started casting.  The Unspeakable threw several blasting spells in the direction of the team of Aurors who were invading the Remembrance Ball, and her protegee warded them.

“We have to go,” Stuart said, tugging Hermione towards the stairs.  Hermione quickly kicked off her heels and ripped the bottom half of her skirt off before following the older witch down the stairs.

“No, this way,” Hermione said, tugging Stuart towards one of the hidden passages on the fourth floor that she knew of thanks to the Marauder’s Map.  They darted through the passage, which spit them out in a little used corridor on the third floor.

Hands grabbed Hermione’s arms and she reacted instinctively, driving her elbow back into one person’s gut as she shot a stupefy over her shoulder at the second.

“‘Mione,” Ron grunted when Hermione whirled away from him.  “Listen, just let us take in Stuart. We won’t hurt you,” he promised.

She gave a humorless chuckle.  “Too late for that,” she said bitterly.  Who did this man - no, boy - think he was? Or did he just conveniently forget the fact that he’d unceremoniously dumped her five months before, in front of his entire family and over Christmas? Or what about abandoning them on their quest, or the six years of mockery and teasing that she’d gotten while in Hogwarts with him?

Hermione’s eyes darted to Unspeakable Stuart, who was being restrained by Ron and Harry’s supervising Auror.  The women’s eyes met, and Stuart gave Hermione a grim smile as she tightened her fist around something.

Hermione pointed her wand at Ron, distracting him with the glowing tip as she slid a hand down her left thigh and into her beaded bag, disillusioned and strapped to her leg.  As she started to cast hexes at Ron - low level, simple things meant to keep him occupied - she slowly pulled out a short silver cylinder, covered in carvings of runes and roses.

“Hermione,” Stuart yelled, struggling against the warded cuffs the Auror had clapped on one wrist and was trying to strap to her other arm.  “Go all the way back. Fix things. The letter explains it all,” she said cryptically, before nodding and silently mouthing  _ one, two. _

Hermione slid her wand back into its holster as, on the count of  _ three,  _ Stuart threw something small and shiny through the air.  Hermione took off sprinting after it, jumping onto the edge of the stone balcony and then leaping off of it to catch the sparkling Time Turner flying through the air towards the first floor.

“ _ Molliare _ !” she cried as she tumbled through the air.  The cushioning charm made her landing on the hard stone floor of the castle slightly less jarring, and Hermione used the momentum to roll forward, past the stunned Aurors waiting on the ground, and to run towards the door that led onto the grounds.

“ _Legati_ _pandi_!” she yelled, and the silver cylinder in her hand expanded to become a carved vinewood staff, inset with aquamarine, smoky quartz, calcite, moonstone, and garnet stones around the top third of the staff, which reached almost to her head.  Hermione swung the staff in a horizontal arc, and a bubble of magic pushed the Aurors back from her as she ran towards the grounds.

“Get her! She has the Time Turner!” one of the Aurors behind her yelled.

Things were a blur after that.  Hermione ran and ran, smooth stone corridors giving way to supple grass and then to the harsher ground of the forest under her bare feet.  Brambles and stray hexes scratched her skin as she dodged the Aurors and sought safety in the Forbidden Forest.

The blasts from her staff managed to eventually stun all of the Aurors but one, who bravely followed her deeper into the dark forest.  He sent a curse at her, but luckily she tripped over a tree root just then, knocking her to the ground and out of the path of his spell.

Her knee throbbed painfully, and Hermione knew from experience that it had probably been dislocated...again.  She used her staff to haul herself up, and then turned to face her opponent.

“C’mon, Granger,” a vaguely familiar voice said as the blonde man caught up to her.  “Just hand over the Time Turner, and you and I can walk back to the Great Hall and get Madam Pomfrey to check your knee.  It’s dislocated, isn’t it? Probably pretty painful, too.”

“McLaggen?” she said, peering through the darkening light of the forest as dusk overtook them.

“Give it up, Granger.  You’re a smart girl, you know you can’t win this,” he said patronizingly.  “I’ll protect you from the cuffs, one Gryffindor to another,” he said, giving her a charming smile that, she imagined, he thought worked quite well on women.

Her thumb and middle finger ran over the edges of the single hoop around the Time Turner in her hands until she found the bolts the connected it to the hourglass.

“What is the charge against Unspeakable Stuart?” she asked, stalling for time as she tightened her grip on her staff and wordlessly started casting a small circle of protection around herself.

“She is deliberately undermining new Ministry policies,” Cormac said flatly, as if reciting from a script he didn’t fully comprehend the meaning of.

Hermione, however, understood.  There had been rumors - hushed whispers, really - of a Muggleborn registry being formed.  So they could understand how magic appeared spontaneously in families, supposedly. To protect Muggleborns and help ensure more of them would exist in future generations, or so they said.  But the whole endeavor was washed in a shade of pink that Hermione had a deep, personal, loathing for, and she was smart enough to know that should that registry come to fruition, she would be the first to undergo ‘testing.’  Even on the Light side, there were some old, pureblooded families that couldn’t comprehend how a witch like  _ her  _ could be so magically powerful.

Hermione had already bled enough for the magical world, and she had the scars to prove it.

“One Gryffindor to another, huh?” Hermione sneered.  “You should know that a Gryffindor never backs down from a fight. Especially  _ this  _ Gryffindor,” Hermione said as she stamped her staff against the ground, completing her warded circle.

Cormac cast a stunner at her, but it bounced harmlessly off of her wards.

“Oh, Cormac,” Hermione said, a faux note of pity dripping into her voice.  “You couldn’t catch me at Slughorn’s party when we were in school; what makes you think you’ll be able to do it now?”  She raised the hand holding the Time Turner delicately between two fingers. “They say I’m the cleverest witch of my age,” she said mockingly before twisting her fingers and winking out of existence there.

Or rather...out of existence  _ then. _

The  _ when  _ of her landing is much more interesting than the  _ where _ .

 

* * *

**June 1976**

Hermione landed with a heavy thump on her arse in the middle of the Forbidden Forest.  Her stomach rolled and her head spun, and she clamped her lips together in an effort not to vomit.

She let herself fall back, and laid with arms and legs sprawled on the rough floor of the forest.  A rock dug into the small of her back, and she focused on the pressure as she pulled herself back together, atom by atom, centimeter by centimeter, until she felt like a person again, and not a skin-covered blob that had been squeezed through a tube of toothpaste.

Without sitting up, she tilted the top of her staff towards the sky and cast a Tempus spell.   _ June 20th, 1976, 9:57 pm _ hovered in smoky writing above her head.

Familiar scents filled the air around her.  The sharp, staticky smell of magic in general, and the richer, sweeter scent of her own magic.  The rich, fertile smell of the soil and the wild, growing scent of the Forbidden Forest. 

The scents of chocolate and parchment, underlaid by the barest hint of blood and bone, reached her next, quickly followed by the scents of leather, smoke and rain.  Both were scent combinations that she had not smelled in years, but they were still burnt into her psyche as surely as the spell for bluebell flames and her parents’ original telephone number, after all this time.

A familiar howl echoed throughout the forest, and Hermione instantly shot to her feet.  Ignoring her pounding head and throbbing knee, she gripped her staff tighter and starting chanting a warding spell around herself.

There was a growl and then the sound of two bodies hitting the ground.  A wolf and a Grim landed at the edge of the clearing she was in, oblivious to the human in the woods as they snapped their jaws and snarled each other.  The dog was trying to knock the wolf back out of the clearing, and the wolf was very clearly trying to rip the dog’s throat out.

Just like old times, then.

“Now boys,” she said, startling herself at how husky and raw her voice sounded.  “Play nice.” She could feel the magic that hummed through her body, something not entirely under her own control, and the wolf and dog almost instantaneously sprang apart at her command.

The wolf recovered first, and he quickly moved away from the dog and towards her, growling ominously as he stalked towards her.

A challenging growl grew in Hermione’s throat, and she could feel her features sharpening, teeth and fingernails extending.  She knew that if she were to see her reflection right now, her eyes would be glowing goldenly and her hair sparking at the ends.

Her eyes tracked the bunching of muscles underneath the wolf’s skin and by the time he leapt towards her, Hermione had pulled up her staff and swung it, sending the wolf flying away from her.

He landed gracefully on his feet, and started another slow stalk towards her, this time with a more roundabout route.  Cognizant of the the runes she’d cast, still hovering in the air around her, Hermione walked a circle, counterpoint to the wolf, and drew a connecting line through her runes with her staff.  At each cardinal point, she instinctively rotated her staff, drawing a small loop on each quarter of the circle.

“Stop that, Mr. Moony,” she chided him, hoping to distract him from scenting the powerful magics she was using.  “You know me. We’re connected, you and I, in more ways than one.”

The wolf just watched her, like she was prey.

They completed their circle, and Hermione stamped the base of her staff against the ground.  Magic poured out of her, rustling the trees around them and rocking the dog, hovering in the background, off of his feet.  Her signature ring of bluebell flames sprung up around Hermione and the wolf, and she relaxed, knowing that whatever came next, she would be safe so long as she was inside those flames.

Knee throbbing, Hermione lowered herself back to the ground.  The wolf continued to growl at her, and she sighed. “You don’t scare me, Mr. Moony,” she told him tiredly. 

Honestly, though.  She’d once caught Remus sliding through the kitchen in Grimmauld Place in his socks as he raced to keep his not-so-secret chocolate stash out of Sirius’ hands, as the animagus chased him with a feather duster.  They’d both crashed into the kitchen table and then onto the floor in a heap of limbs and oversized sweaters, laughing madly like the mischievous boys they once were.

It was rather hard to take him seriously after that.

The wolf sat back and watched her, wary and waiting.  Hermione ignored him and instead reset her knee, wincing at the loud crack that filled the clearing.  From the corner of her eye, she watched as the wolf slowly crept forward until he could stretch his body out to sniff at her shoulders, where Hermione knew her own scars from Greyback were clearly exposed.  She lifted her hair off of her back so he could see the marks more clearly.

Bracing herself for a bite, Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin when his cold nose touched her skin, followed by the wet rasp of his tongue.   _ Rather forward, Mr. Moony _ , she thought, giggling a little incoherently to herself.

Something like a fish hook, catching behind her sternum, jerked inside Hermione the moment Moony touched his nose to her skin.  Sparks danced behind her eyes, and an odd tingling feeling filled her limbs. Behind her, she could feel a shudder dance over the wolf.  

The wolf made an odd huffing noise.  Then, much like an certain oversized puppy she once knew, the wolf curled up next to her, as docile as his human counterpart.  Hermione tilted over to lay against his side, and if a few hysterical tears happened to drip onto his fur, well...it’s not like wolves can tell the difference between happy and sad tears.

 

* * *

 

Once the moon had set and the sun had started its ascent, Hermione banished a sleeping,  _ human _ Remus to the Hospital Wing before slowly trudging up the path through the Forbidden Forest that led to a little-used side door.  With a wave of her hand and a muttered chain of spells, she disillusioned and silenced herself, and added a notice-me-not for extra safety.

She slipped inside the castle and quietly wove through the small groups of students that were already up for the day, heading for where she knew Professor McGonagall’s quarters were.  She waited until the fourth floor corridor she was in cleared out, she pulled her copy of the Marauder’s Map out of her beaded bag and opened it. 

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” she whispered.  As the ink spread, Hermione tracked her eyes over the map until she found herself.  The map-version of herself had a little bubble appear above her head, and Hermione tiredly squinted at the tiny writing to see that the current password to McGonagall’s office was  _ Nimue _ .

Hermione let herself into the Transfiguration professor’s rooms and slowly sank down onto the oversized chintz couch on which she’d sipped many cups of tea, back in her time.

The professor herself came striding out of her bedroom, wand at the ready and wrapped in a tartan robe.  “Who are you and how did you get into my quarters?”

Hermione didn’t move from where she was slumped against the couch cushions.  “My name is Hermione, and you are one of my mentors - or rather, you will be.  You introduced me to your younger sister, who recruited me to the Daughters of Avalon.  And most importantly, you keep a stash of eighteen year old Glenlivet behind that portrait of Godric Gryffindor,” she finished, jerking her chin towards the portrait of the founder of their house that hung over the fireplace.  “And I would love a tipple.”

“Prove to me that you are a Daughter,” McGonagall commanded.

Hermione lifted the medallion from the neckline of her dress and held it up for the other woman to see. 

McGonagall held her wand out for a long moment, and then waved it at the portrait, which swung open to reveal the bottles of scotch hidden behind it.  The bottle floated out, along with two crystal tumblers, and two healthy pours of scotch filled the glasses. One glass floated to Hermione, and she gratefully took it and drank half the contents in one long swallow.

“I also have a letter,” Hermione said, setting her staff aside to untie her beaded bag from her leg and removed the box Stuart had given her.  She pulled the folded parchment out, and it shimmered slightly, alerting Hermione to the magics that had been cast on it. Hermione gingerly held it between her thumb and forefinger and passed it to her past-future professor.

McGonagall took the letter, studied the magics on it, and then quietly said a spell in Welsh that made the letter unfold and text spread across the page.  Her eyebrows climbed on her forehead as she read the letter, and when they reached the end of the missive they abruptly dropped into an angry visage.

Ignoring the strange girl on her couch, McGonagall strode to her fireplace and threw a pinch of Floo powder in.  “Moira!” she yelled as she stuck her head into the green flames. “Moira, get yourself in my quarters, NOW,” she commanded, before pulling herself back out of the flames.  

McGonagall cast a Patronus charm, and a silvery cat flowed out of the tip of her wand.  “Poppy, prepare a bed for an unexpected patient. And make sure you have an apple,” she told the cat, and it licked its paw before slinking away through the stone wall.

“So my feckless, reckless baby sister sent you tumbling through time,” she said to Hermione without preamble as she slumped into a wingback chair.

Hermione nodded, and took another sip of her whiskey.

The Floo chimed, and the younger version of the witch Hermione had just been with stepped through the flames.  “What are you bellowing about now, Min?” the witch asked tiredly as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. “I just got off a night shift,” she whinged.

McGonagall gave her an unimpressed look and handed the note over.  Stuart quickly read the note, and a wide grin spread across her face.

“Holy fuckin shite, I’m a genius!” she crowed, and McGonagall threw back the rest of her whiskey as she rolled her eyes. Hermione snorted, and both of the older women turned to look at her.

“So why are you the one who came back?” Stuart asked as she and McGonagall both stared at Hermione’s tangled hair, tattered dress, and bloodstained feet.

“I’m one of only three people who have a complete knowledge of how Voldemort was defeated,” Hermione said succinctly.  “And the other two are too recognizable, too similar to wizards and witches that are currently the same age as us in this time. And, you know,  _ boys _ ,” she added disdainfully.

McGonagall huffed a quiet laugh, and Stuart grinned widely.  “You really are a Daughter,” she mused. “So, what do we need to do to stop You-Know-Who?”

Hermione opened her mouth to answer, but McGonagall cut her off.  “Moira, we cannae be meddling in time!” she yelled, her Scottish accent thickening as her anger grew.  “Ye know what happens - Eloise Mintumble, remember?”

“Aye, I remember just fine, Min,” Stuart yelled back.  

“I won’t be a part of this foolishness!” McGonagall exclaimed.  “All the studies show that-”

“-those who meddle with time are only the causation for events that already happened,” Hermione finished for McGonagall.  “You loaned me your personal Time Turner during my third year as a student, so I could attend all the classes I wanted to take.  I had ‘potential,’ or so you told the DoM when you went to them to sign off on it,” Hermione told the professor.

Both women gaped at her, and Hermione continued.  “But Professor, alterations have already been made to the timeline.  From what I was able to overhear as I walked to your quarters, Peter Pettigrew was expelled last night for endangering the life of another student,” she said, and McGonagall nodded that this was indeed correct.  

“In my timeline,” Hermione said, taking a deep breath, “it was Sirius Black who tricked Severus Snape into following them to the Whomping Willow, not Peter.  Sirius was not expelled, nor was Peter, and Snape was sworn to secrecy about Remus Lupin’s condition. So changes have already been made, you see?” She mustered up the energy to give the other two women a daring grin.  “So why not make a few more?”

McGonagall narrowed her eyes at Hermione.  “How do we know that you are telling the truth?”

Hermione raised her eyes to Stuart’s.  “I know Unspeakable Stuart is an accomplished Legilimens,” she said.  “So check my memories,” she suggested, shrugging slightly.

Stuart raised her wand and pointed it at Hermione’s forehead.  Hermione stiffened, forcing herself not to automatically cloud her mind and raise her occlumentic shields.  Instead, she focused solely on her memory of Harry telling her what had happened between the Marauders, Snape, and Lily, as he had seen it in Snape’s memories.

After a few minutes, Stuart lowered her wand.  “She’s telling the truth, Min,” Stuart said, a hint of gloating in her voice.

“I shan’t do it, and that’s that. Hang the bloody Daughters,” McGonagall swore.

Hermione stared at her favorite person, the woman who’d introduced her to this world of magic and wonder and terror.  At the woman who’d so bravely defended Harry from everyone, and who’d fought like a lioness to protect all of the students of Hogwarts in the final battle, not just those of her house.  She knew it would take a miracle, something drastic and horrifying, to make the professor change her mind.

“James Potter and Lily Evans are murdered by Voldemort himself after being betrayed by Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black is wrongfully imprisoned for over a dozen years for their deaths,” Hermione told McGonagall bluntly.  “James and Lily have a son, and he is sent to live with the absolute worst sort of Muggles, or so you said. Will say. Whichever,” Hermione said, wrinkling her nose at the mismatching verb tenses. “He is raised like a lamb for slaughter by Albus  _ fucking  _ Dumbledore, and he willingly lays down his life because that manipulative old bastard convinces him to,” Hermione spat venomously.  “Remus dies, along with his mate. Sirius dies. So very many people who shouldn’t have to  _ die _ , and their sacrifices mean  _ nothing  _ because the Ministry is still obsessed with blood purity and ‘protecting’ magic, for the ‘greater good.’”

(Harry had refused to read the biography Rita Skeeter had published about Dumbledore, but Hermione had been just curious enough to force herself to read the first chapter.  She ended up reading the entire three volume set in one night. Skeeter may be a conniving, manipulative bitch of the highest order, but there was no denying that she knew how to do her research, and how to find the truths buried the deepest underground.

For the greater good, indeed.)

McGonagall dropped back into her chair, stunned.  “James Potter...and Lily Evans...have a son?” she asked, voice faint.

“Yes,” Hermione said, smiling gently.  “He is...wonderful, and so brave, and kind, and stubborn, and Morgana, so bloody dramatic that sometimes I want to smack him,” she said, smiling softly as her eyes filled with tears.  “He Crucio’d someone for daring to spit on you, because he loves you so very much,” she said gently, and McGonagall’s eyes filled with tears as well. “And he’s a hell of a Seeker,” Hermione added, grinning.  “First first year to make the Gryffindor team in a hundred and fifty years, and handpicked by you to play.”

McGonagall took one deep, shuddery breath, and then straightened her spine and set her glass aside.  

“So what do we need to do?” McGonagall asked resolutely.

“Well, first…” Hermione said, smiling eagerly at her two past-future mentors, both so eager to help her once again. “I’m going to need a cover, something that even Dumbledore won’t question, that will let me live here and attend classes for a bit.”

McGonagall and Stuart exchanged clever, mischievous looks.  “Oh, I’m sure we can come up with something…” Stuart said, her grin a bit serpentine.

 

* * *

 

McGonagall - no,  _ Auntie Min _ , as Hermione must now remember to call her - escorted Hermione through one of the teacher shortcut passages to the Hospital Wing.  She dropped Hermione off into Madam Pomfrey’s capable hands, and the petite matron instantly bustled Hermione about, shoving potions into her hands as she stripped the young witch out of her torn and stained dress and pushed her into the shower stall in the back of the infirmary.

Hermione dutifully swallowed the potions - a mid-grade strength healing potion and a blood-replenishing potion, judging by their familiar, awful tastes, and a slight de-aging potion to make her look sixteen, not nearly twenty.  

She unstrapped her beaded bag and wand from her legs and left them within reach as she quickly showered off the dirt and grime from her run through the forest.  She could hear Minerva telling Madam Pomfrey the story they’d come up with, and by the time Hermione was rinsing conditioner out of her hair her new guardian had left the infirmary wing to go supervise the loading of students onto the train home.

Now clean and dry, Hermione ignored the pajamas Madam Pomfrey had left for her, and instead pulled some of Harry’s old pajama pants and one of his Weasley jumpers out of her beaded bag, still in there from their year on the run, and wore them.  She strapped her wand and her bag back to her legs, and braided her wet hair back.

She walked back out into the infirmary, where Madam Pomfrey waited for her.  The mediwitch held out a familiar purple potion, but Hermione shook her head.  “I cannot take Dreamless Sleep,” she said regretfully. “I’m about two dosages from the addiction threshold.”

A brief, shocked look crossed across the older woman’s face, but she quickly schooled it back into a more professional expression.  “Very well,” she chirped. “You’ll take a calming draught, then,” she said in a tone that brooked no arguments.

“Do you have any post-lunar potions? That may work better than a calming draught.”  Madam Pomrey studied the younger girl, and Hermione felt her eyes flash gold and her fingernails lengthen and sharpen as her own wolfish nature reared its head.

“Demiwolf, are you? Haven’t seen one of those in a while,” Madam Pomfrey commented idly as she got two shimmering blue potions out of her supply cabinet and passed one of them to Hermione.

“Among other things, yes,” Hermione said tightly before tipping the potion back.

“Well, you let me know if you need any pain potions or anything like that while you’re here,” the matron said kindly.  “Now, lay down and try to get some rest, dearie, while Minerva gets things sorted out. I imagine that the Headmaster will be knocking on our doors soon enough,” she said, lips pursing tightly.  Hermione stiffened, and Madam Pomfrey put a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Now don’t you worry, dearie,” she said soothingly. “I don’t let anyone disturb my patients, not even that man,” she said, and there was a surprising note of steel on her voice.

Hermione wasn’t a betting kind of girl, but she’d wager good money on Madam Pomfrey just then in a fight with Dumbledore.

After all, to be an effective Healer, you must also understand how to harm.

 

* * *

 

 

Remus woke the morning after the full moon much as he usually did - sore as hell, bone tired, and ensconced in his usual bed in the hospital wing.

The only difference, this time, was that when he opened his eyes, a girl was sitting by his feet, leaning back against the footrail with her toes tucked under his calf.  She was a tiny thing, the striped pajama pants she was wearing trailing over her feet and the jumper, embroidered with an H, falling off of her shoulder. Her damp hair was pulled back in a tight braid, and her eyes were a warm whiskey brown as they stared at him.

“Hello, Remus,” she said quietly, a small smile quirking up the corner of her mouth.

“How...how do you know my name?” he stuttered nervously.

A humorless chuckle escaped her mouth.  “Like calls to like,” she murmured.

“You..you mean you’re...you’re a…?”

“...a huge bookworm with terribly reckless friends who somehow ends up leading them in their misadventures?” she suggested wryly, arching an eyebrow at him as she burrowed her icy cold toes further underneath his thigh.

“No? I mean, yes, but...no? Also, how are your feet that cold?” he grumbled, attempting to shift his legs away from her.

She leaned forward and situated herself in the empty space on his left side, laying on her side and facing him.  Slightly uncomfortable at her close proximity, he shifted away, and she rolled her eyes. “Relax,” she sighed. “I’m not going to ravish you or anything,” she said sarcastically.

Remus felt more relieved than disappointed.  He was a teenage boy, after all, but something about this girl set off his inner wolf, not his hormones. 

She wiggled on the bed, making herself comfortable next to him.  Normally, he would be snapping his teeth and growling at anyone who would dare to be in his space, still territorial and bit wolfish this soon after a shift.  But instead, he found himself welcoming this strange girl, with her almost druggingly-sweet scent and too-tired eyes, into his space as if she’d been there the whole of his life.

The neckline of her sweater shifted some more as she moved, revealing the edge of a jagged scar across the back of her shoulder blade.  “Oh,” he said quietly, green eyes flashing gold. That could explain...

“Oh, indeed,” she echoed, her own eyes glowing golden as well.

“You smell familiar,” he blurted out, and his cheeks instantly turned red as soon as the words left his mouth.  “I mean…”

The girl cut him off.  “I know what you mean,” she said, lips quirking again.  “We have...the same maker, you might say. Different results, but same starting point,” she said, tapping her shoulder blade before motioning to his side, where a very similar set of scars stretched across his ribcage.

“So you’re not…”

“No,” she cut him off again.  “I’m something else entirely,” she said, a bleak note creeping into her voice.  “I still like my steaks rare, though,” she added after a moment, forcing a grin back onto her face.

“How else do you cook a steak?” Remus joked weakly.

There was something about the girl that pulled at Remus, or rather, at  _ Moony _ .  He wanted to wrap her up and keep her safe - from what, he had no clue, but it seemed almost imperative that he comfort her.

Trying to ignore the howling wolf in his head, he turned to grab his potions off the nightstand and quickly swallowed them, before carefully laying back down next to her.  She nudged him onto his side, and curled up to his back, wrapping an arm around his ribs as she tucked her cold toes in between his calves.

“Merlin,” he hissed, jumping a little.  “I don’t even know your name,” he muttered.

He felt the girl huff out a laugh against his vertebrae.  “I’m Hermione,” she murmured. “And I think we somehow made a Pack last night,” she admitted, before falling asleep.

Remus stiffened under her grip.  Pack? With this strange girl? And not with James, Sirius and Peter? Inside his head, Moony made an agreeable yipping noise before settling down, easier and quicker than he ever had after a shift.

What a  _ fucking  _ weird full moon.


	2. I must go on standing (it’s not my choice)

**June 1976**

 

“Hermione. What do you think you are doing?” 

The harsh whisper woke Hermione from the doze she’d been in, and she automatically pulled her wand from her holster and pointed it at the speaker.  Realizing that it was Minerva, she put her wand away and untangled herself from where she was wrapped around Remus.

The boy in question woke as well, and when he felt her move his eyes flashed golden and he snarled at the waiting professor.

Hermione brushed his disheveled hair back and rested a hand on his forehead.  “Sleep,” she commanded. Magic filled her voice, making it deeper and more resonant, seeming to echo around the cavernous space in the Hospital Wing.  

Remus’ eyes flashed a brighter gold before he relaxed back onto the bed and went back to sleep.

When Hermione turned back around to face Minerva, the older witch was staring at her contemplatively.  “There’s quite a bit you didn’t tell us earlier, isn’t there,” she said suspiciously.

Hermione stared steadily back, but did not answer Minerva’s second question.  Instead, she apologized. “Sorry about that,” she said, gesturing to the sleeping boy beside them.  “My wolf side recognizes him as Pack, and my witch side recognizes him as family,” she admitted. “I feel...safe with him.”

Minerva didn’t say anything, but merely gave Hermione a thoughtful look.  “Dumbledore has requested our presence in his office,” she said instead, with an added pointed look.

Hermione nodded, and reached into her beaded bag to pull out socks and a sturdy pair of boots.  At Minerva’s raised eyebrow when her arm sunk into the bag up to her armpit, she explained. “Undetectable extension charm.”

“Show Filius that and he’ll be sure to let you into his NEWTs class,” she suggested.

“Oh, damn, I’m going to have to take my OWLs again, aren’t I?”

“Really, Hermione, I must insist that you watch your language.  No ward of mine curses like a dragon tamer,” she said tartly.

Hermione rolled her eyes as she hid a smile.  It was almost effortless to slide into their roles as adopted niece and aunt, instead of teacher and student.  For Hermione, it was because she had spent the last year in her time with Minerva as a mentor, and she vaguely wondered how it was that Minerva had so easily slipped into the role.

Minerva and Hermione walked in a companionable silence to the headmaster’s office.  Hermione used the time to build a few false memories in her mind, close enough to the surface that Dumbledore would find them, should he use Legilimens on her, and similar enough to the story she had concocted earlier with Minerva and Moira that they would corroborate whatever Minerva had told Dumbledore.

They reached the gargoyle statue, and Minerva briskly recited the password.  “Ice mice.” The statue moved aside, and the two women stepped onto the bottom step and rode the moving steps to the top. 

“Ah, Minerva, do come in. And this must be your ward, Miss Morgan,” Headmaster Dumbledore said, and Hermione dug her nails into her palms in an effort not to gouge that damnable twinkle out of his eyes.

Minerva rested a comforting hand on Hermione’s shoulder.  “Albus, can we make this quick? My niece has been through enough today, and needs to rest,” she said, polite but brusque.

Dumbledore ignored her and instead stared at Hermione.  “Miss Morgan, why don’t you tell me how you came to be on these grounds,” he said gently, but Hermione could hear the curiosity in his voice.  “Hogwarts is warded heavily, especially against apparition.”

_ “Lying successfully isn’t really that hard,” Moira had said earlier in the morning.  “Every good lie has an element of truth in it; the trick is to just phrase things so that the listener misinterprets what you’re saying,” Moira had explained to Hermione. _

“I didn’t apparate,” Hermione said, a tremor of exhaustion in her voice that she didn’t have to fake.  “I was...I was unknowingly given a Portkey by one of my tutors. She saved me,” Hermione whispered, letting tears fill her eyes.

“Miss Morgan’s parents made the decision to privately tutor her, when I delivered her Hogwarts letter,” Minerva said, a subtle way of telling Dumbledore that Hermione was Muggleborn.  “I contacted tutors on their behalf, and have kept in touch in the intervening years.”

“Why did your tutor give you a portkey?”  Dumbledore asked, turning back to Hermione.

_ “The thing to remember is that a Legilimens can only skim your  _ **_immediate_ ** _ thoughts - so if you believe that what you’re saying is the truth, and keep the actual truth buried deep, most Legilimens will believe you, and not go poking deeper into your mind,” Moira had instructed. _

“We were attacked,” Hermione said.  (True.) “When it looked like there would be no way for any of us to escape, my tutor threw the Portkey to me to protect me.” (Mostly true.)

“What happened to your parents?” Dumbledore probed.

“They’re gone.” (True - just not in the way he would assume.)  Hermione choked off a genuine sob; the emotional trauma of not being able to recover her parents’ memories was still fresh in her mind, even though it’d been over a year for her since she’d tried to do it.

“Her parents made me her legal guardian so she would be able to stay in the wizarding world, should something happen to them,” Minerva explained as she wrapped an arm around Hermione and pulled her closer to her side.

Dumbledore studied her for a long moment, and then nodded.  “Very well, then. I believe the castle has provided a set of rooms for Miss Morgan?” Minerva nodded, and he gave Hermione a friendly smile.  “Why don’t you get some rest then, Miss Morgan. Should you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask.”

Hermione dropped her eyes to her lap to hide the gold she could feel bleeding in, not wanting to accidentally reveal  _ that  _ secret to Dumbledore, and nodded stiffly.  She let Minerva help her out of her chair and lead her out of Dumbledore’s office.  By the time they reached the foot of his stairs, Hermione was shaking - not from fear, but from anger.

Dumbledore? Give help? Oh, he would - or rather, he would  _ think _ he was giving help, whenever he told them twisting riddles and small, half-pieces of the puzzle.  But the price for Dumbledore’s help was always blood, and sacrifice, and Hermione had made enough of those for him to last her a lifetime.

Minerva led Hermione to a set of rooms next door to her own quarters.  “I think you’re... _ mature _ enough to have your own space, and there’s a connecting door to my own living room should you need me,” Minerva said, smirking slightly at the drooping girl.

“Thanks, Auntie,” Hermione said, tiredly leaning against the older woman.

“Get some rest.  I imagine that you will sleep through supper, so I will see you tomorrow morning.  We shall work out your academic schedule then, if that’s all right?”

Hermione nodded, and pressed her hand against the wooden door in front of her. It shivered, recognizing her magic, and swung open on slightly squeaky hinges.

Hermione let herself into her rooms and waited - for what, she wasn’t quite sure.  She looked around the room, not really seeing the furnishings, instead looking for a familiar orange shape to come slinking around the corner of a door frame.  When she realized that Crookshanks wasn’t going to greet her like he normally did, she broke.

Through the past twelve hours in the past, Hermione’s wolf-side had been running rampant in her mind, keeping her moving and focused on the tasks at hand.  She hadn’t really stopped to think about the fact that she was now twenty-three years in the past, a part of a secret society, and on a mission that would most certainly get her killed.  All of those changes suddenly hit her, like a flipendo to the brain, and it was too much for her still war-traumatised mental and emotional states.  

She dropped down to the floor, right in front of the main door, and freaked out. Racing heartbeats, ugly sobs, and ragged breaths filled the small living room.

“Oh, fuck me,” she said after about fifteen minutes, voice wavering and wet.  She staggered to her feet, across the wide living room, and through an open door to promptly crawl under the bed and fall asleep.

 

* * *

**July 1976**

Hermione’s first month in 1976 passed surprisingly quickly.  She retook her OWLs, achieving high marks in all eleven subjects - including a whopping 400% in Defense Against the Dark Arts.  Other than that, she mostly slept, usually averaging somewhere between twelve and sixteen hours every day.

According to Madam Pomfrey, who’d run  _ extensive  _ diagnostic spells on Hermione, once she’d been told the real story (she was a Daughter of Avalon alongside Minerva, Moira, and another professor Hermione had yet to meet), the time travel had basically undone any physical healing that Hermione had after the war was over.  Which meant that Hermione had to regain the weight she’d lost while on the run, let her wounds from her torture at Malfoy Manor heal again, and work through the physical therapy for her two dislocated shoulders and injured knee.

Fortunately, though, her mental healing was still intact.  Her body may ache, but at least Hermione did not have to relive the constant nightmares, panic attacks, and occasional hallucination that she’d had in those first few months.

Another full moon came around, and Hermione spent it running wild - but human - in the Forbidden Forest.

The next morning, Hermione’s wolf side was all but howling at her to go find Remus.  She could somehow sense him, and something about him didn’t feel right. Determined to figure out what the hell was going on with both him, and her strange, new-found wolf magic, Hermione snuck through the tunnel that led to Honeydukes and then apparated to the cottage that she’d only known as the Den - where Tonks and Remus had lived while she, Harry and Ron had been on the run.

She could hear a masculine voice yelling - or rather,  _ slurring _ \- loudly the moment she landed outside the little cottage.

Power crackling along her fingertips, she strode into the cottage like she’d been there thousands of times before.  An exhausted looking Remus was cowering in the living room under the irate and drunken screaming of a gray-haired, sour-faced man who could only be Lyall Lupin, while a pretty but faded-looking blonde woman hovered nervously in the doorway to the kitchen.

“That is ENOUGH,” Hermione said as the door slammed with the force of her entry.

“Who the hell are you?” Lyall yelled at her.

“Lyall Lupin,” Hermione intoned, her voice deepening and echoing around the small room, “you are going to put that bottle down and treat your son and your wife with the respect they deserve,” she commanded.

The three members of the Lupin family stared at her.  To them, Hermione looked like some vengeful Scottish war goddess: wrapped in a borrowed set of tartan robes, hair crackling around her with its own kinetic energy, eyes glowing gold, magic thrumming so tangibly beneath her skin that it left static in the air.

Lyall set the firewhiskey bottle down with an audible  _ clink _ against the side table as his mouth hung open and he stared at Hermione.

Remus collapsed on the threadbare floral couch, and his mother immediately rushed to his side.  “Let me clean that cut before you go to sleep, darling,” she murmured, fussing at a long scratch on his forearm.

Hermione waved a hand, summoning the bowl of warm water and the washcloth that she could see waiting on the kitchen table and placing them on the floor next to the other woman.  Nonplussed, Hope wet the washcloth and then dabbed at the congealed blood on Remus’ arm.

“I’ll need some bandages and antibacterial cream, unless you can do the healing spells,” she told Hermione expectantly.

Hermione pulled her wand out of her pocket and cast the healing spell.   _ Remus’ mum is a Muggle? I didn’t know that, _ she thought idly.

“Hope, get away from him!” Lyall yelled, pulling at his wife as she cleaned the smaller cuts on Remus’ face.

“Oh, do shut up, Lyall,” Hope snapped at her husband as she wrenched herself out of his grip.

There was an odd pressure in Hermione’s head as Hope ignored her husband’s dirty looks and tended to her son.   _ Did I just change something else? _ Hermione wondered as she rubbed at the space between her eyebrows.   _ This feels oddly...significant. _

“Are you a werewolf too?” Hope asked Hermione innocently.

“Demiwolf,” Hermione answered.  “I was marked, but it wasn’t during a full moon,” she explained to Hope’s curious look.

“And are you friends with my son at Hogwarts?” Hope asked as she helped Remus up from the couch and started leading him towards his bedroom.

Hermione draped one of Remus’ arms over her shoulder and helped Hope.  “I’d like to be. He seems really nice,” Hermione said, smiling at Hermione over Remus’ shoulder.

The two women get Remus situated in his bed, albeit a little crookedly.  Hermione stifled a giggle at the way Remus’ long legs hung off the end of his little twin bed.

Hope turned and studied Hermione, pushing Hermione’s hair back from her face and resting the back of her hand against Hermione’s forehead.  “You look as worn out as Ree here,” Hope said bluntly. “Do your parents know that you’re out this soon after a full moon?” she asked Hermione with a concerned look.

“Um…I live with my guardian, Professor McGonagall, at Hogwarts. I just moved there,” Hermione said awkwardly. It had been a long time since anyone had directed any sort of motherly concern towards her - discounting Molly Weasley’s efforts, which always somehow felt like an afterthought to Hermione.

Hope gave her a knowing look.  “Something tells me she doesn’t know you’re here,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the girl.

“Um, no ma’am,” Hermione said nervously. 

“Right,” Hope said decisively, straightening her spine and standing at attention.  “Well, you are going to owl her and tell her you’re here and then you are going to lie down in the other bed and take a nap,” she ordered Hermione, pointing at the matching twin bed on the other side of Remus’ room.

Hermione cast a Patronus, and her new silvery wolf form waited for her message.  “Minerva, I’m recovering with Remus at Lupin Cottage. I’ll be back-”

“-after a nice long nap and a good lunch,” Hope interjected.  Hermione repeated her words and sent her wolf bounding off.

It did not take long for Minerva’s cat Patronus to return with a reply.  “Good. Listen to Mrs. Lupin, and next time...leave a note,” Minerva’s voice said, exasperated.

Hope chuckled as she none-too-gently guided Hermione to the extra bed and forced her down on it.  Hermione laid her head down on the pillow, and within moments was asleep.

 

 

Hope watched the girl sleeping across from her son, whose name she still did not know.  The way she carried herself - alert and wary, hand hovering just above her weapon - was so achingly familiar to Hope, and her heart went out to the girl.

Unbeknownst to both her husband and her son, Hope had a very...interesting past.  More interesting and more dangerous than her husband’s Boggart hunting, and more vicious than her son’s full moons.

Hope was actually five years older than her husband, though her youthful face and surprisingly trim figure, hidden underneath her housedress, gave the impression otherwise.  She’d used that pretty, young face to great advantage during the War, working as an SOE operative in Germany, where her blond hair and green eyes had made her blend in. Seventeen and idealistic, she’d signed up to fight in a war for men that ultimately cared nothing about the sacrifices their women had made.

Hope stroked a few waywards curls back from the girl’s face, noting the thin, faded scars on her forehead and the hand that still rested close to her wand, even in sleep.  She traced her own fingers over the skirt of her dress, soothing herself with the faint feeling of cold metal between soft cotton and warm skin.

She saw parts of herself in this girl, angry and so obviously fractured as she was.  Not broken - they’d both been through way too much to relinquish control to their demons - but fragile in hidden places, where the most benign phrase could plunge the sharpest knife.  Both released back into civilian life with no guide, no support system to help them transition back to the role of docile housewife that was expected of them. Both still watching over their shoulders for a phantom attack.

Hope had put all of those things behind her, after the War.  Packed them all away in a box, deep in the back of her mind, and truly tried to become the simple, cheerful secretary she pretended to be.  

But maybe...maybe it was time to shed her sheep’s clothing, and remind her husband that there was more than one kind of wolf to be afraid of.

After all, you should never try to separate a mother from her pups.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Hermione saw when she woke, well after lunchtime, were the green eyes of one Remus John Lupin boring into her skull, as if the mere action of staring would reveal all of her secrets to him.

(Technically, it  _ could _ , but as far as she knew, Remus wasn’t a Legilimens - and even if he was, she was a pretty damn good Occlumens.)

“What the  _ fuck  _ is going on?” Remus hissed, and Hermione raised her eyebrows at his surprising swearing. “What’re you doing here? Why do you keep finding me after full moons? Why does Moony like you?” he asked quietly, eyes darting back and forth between her and the door to make sure his mother couldn’t hear them.

Hermione pushed herself up into a sitting position, and then pulled her beaded bag out of the pocket of the robes she’d borrowed from Minerva.  She dug around in the bag and pulled out an old book, bound in blood red leather and with a cracking spine. She handed it to him and said, “Page three hundred and ninety-four, third paragraph down.  It should explain everything.”

Remus took the book and flipped through the pages until he found the one she’d said.  His eyes scanned the page until he found the paragraph and then he read it aloud.

“Born of pain and sacrifice, a  _ hexenbiest _ is a witch who is simultaneously Marked by a werewolf and by a cursed blade under a Black Moon.  Her mind must leave her body, and the blood of an innocent must be spilled to bring it back _.  _ A  _ hexenbiest _ is a powerful conduit for Magic itself, but her body cannot withstand the full force of such power without being bonded to an Alpha.  Alpha and Omega, the addition of a  _ hexenbiest  _ will balance the pack and channel Magic into the pack.  As Omega, a  _ hexenbiest  _ can and will command the pack, even the Alpha, should her Magic deem it necessary.  If the  _ hexenbiest  _ does not bond with an Alpha within fifteen lunar cycles of her change, Magic will take her.”

He read back through the paragraph again silently, shock and disbelief evident across his face.  “You...did this to yourself? Why?”

“No,” Hermione said coldly.  “This was done to me. I’m sure  _ you  _ of all people understand the difference. I’m just doing my best to live with it now.”

He stilled, color draining from his already-pale face.  “Sorry,” he murmured.

She sighed and pulled herself to sit on the edge of the bed.  “No, I’m sorry,” Hermione said quietly. “I bonded with you without your permission.  If you like, I can rescind the bond and remove myself from your pack.” Hermione did not want to break their bond, but she knew better than most how it felt to have your body and mind put through things you did not agree to, and she would never force that upon anybody - especially Remus.

“No,” he growled, eyes flashing gold.  After a moment, they returned to green, and the young man looked startled at his answer.  “I mean...um, we can try it out? Moony seems to be rather...insistent,” he said, making a face.

Hermione gave him an apologetic smile.  “If it helps, our bond means that you’ll be able to cast more powerful and complex spells?” she offered.

“Wait, hold on…” Remus said, running a finger back over the text until he found the line he was looking for.  “I’m an Alpha? But I thought…”

“...you had to defeat your Alpha? Yes, but I think that your bond with S...your Animagus friend from the last moon also makes you an Alpha,” Hermione said carefully, catching herself before she revealed that she knew all about Remus’ friends’ identities and alter egos.

“Huh,” Remus hummed, and she could see the wheels turning in his head.  “So...how  _ did  _ we bond?”

Hermione shrugged.  “I think our magics did it.  Like, they recognized each other and...wham!” she said, clapping her hands and linking her fingers together.  “Bonded. I think my magic has been searching for an acceptable Alpha since this happened, and you were the first it found.”

“How long have you been searching?”

“This...this was my final full moon,” she admitted.

“Then we can’t break the bond! You’ll  _ die _ ,” he whispered, horrified.

“There are worse things than death,” she said evenly, staring back at him with a blank expression.  

Remus stared back at her, wide-eyed and a little fearful.  His stomach growled, breaking their awkward standoff, and his expression turned sheepish.

"Go eat,” she ordered.  “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Remus did as instructed, looking back over his shoulder at the door, as if to confirm to himself that she wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.

Once he’d gone to the kitchen, Hermione leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees.  She scrubbed her hands over her face as she took a deep, shuddery breath.  

_ Now is not the time to break down _ , she told herself sternly.   _ Pack it away. _

Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep, even breath.  Two more breaths and she let herself sink down behind her Occlumentic shields, deep within the space of her mind where she tightly compartmentalized all of her trauma.  She imagined tying up her inner wolf - a scrawny, tawny, vicious scrap of a beast - like it was a suckling pig, attaching it to the biggest stone she could picture, and sinking it below the smooth, glass-like surface of the Black Lake.  She held herself within her shields until the mental lake was smooth once more, and then allowed herself to resurface. She checked her reflection in the mirror over Remus’ dresser to make sure her face was as smooth as that lake surface, braided her hair back, and then she stood and walked towards the kitchen.

“Feel better?” Hope asked over her shoulder as she stood at the stove, cracking eggs into a skillet as bacon sizzled.

“Yes, thank you,” Hermione said politely.  She sat down at the table and helped herself to some pumpkin juice, next to Remus who was methodically demolishing the large pile of sausages on his plate. 

The two sat quietly at the table, the silence between them still slightly uncertain.  Hermione rolled her shoulders, and without thinking, Remus reached over and scratched the exact spot between her shoulder blades that itched.  They turned to stare at each other, matching incredulous looks at the way their potential Pack bond seemed to be playing out, and both burst into slightly hysterical laughter.

“So, Hermione,” Hope said as she served Hermione a heaping plate of food and then sat down at the table with them, ignoring both of their odd behaviors.  “Are you going to be in any of Ree’s classes?”

“I’m still waiting on approval from a few professors to get into their NEWTs classes, but I’m hoping to take Defense, Charms, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Potions, History of Magic, and Herbology.  Oh, and of course, Transfiguration,” she listed off as she cut up her eggs.

Both Remus and Hope’s eyebrows shot up.  “That’s quite a course load,” Hope commented.

“I’ll be in everything but Potions and History of Magic with you,” Remus said.  “Wait, are you a Gryffindor? I just assumed you were,” he asked.

Hermione nodded as she swallowed a mouthful of food.  “Yes, I am. And not just because my aunt is the head of house - Dumbledore made me sit under the Sorting Hat.  To make it fair,” she said with an eye roll.

“Professor McGonagall is your aunt? Merlin, Morgana and Medusa,” Remus swore.

“Watch your mouth,” Hope said lowly, and Remus clapped a hand over the body part in question and gave Hermione an apologetic look.  

“Ree, why don’t you tell Hermione about what to expect from the other professors,” Hope suggested, but the pointed look she gave her son while Hermione sipped her drink clearly told him to be nice to the girl.  So Remus talked about the staff - their teaching styles, their expectations, and their usual assignments - while Hermione ate all of her food.

The chime of someone arriving via Floo interrupted his explanation of Slughorn’s specific flavor of favoritism.  “Moony!” a voice called out from the living room.

“Moo-oo-oony,” a second voice - one vaguely familiar to Hermione - echoed.

“Bugger,” Remus muttered under his breath, quiet enough that only Hermione’s new sharp hearing could pick it up.  

Hope noticed the tension in her son’s shoulders, though, and gave him a worried look.  “Everything okay?” she asked him in a low voice.

“I just don’t want to…” he trailed off helplessly, unable and unwilling to tell his mother about what had happened in June.

Hope rested a hand on his shoulder.  “I’ll handle it,” she said firmly, as James Potter and Sirius Black walked into the kitchen.

“Moony, ma...whoa,” James said, stopping abruptly at the sight of a strange girl at the Lupins’ kitchen table.

Sirius ran into James’ back and bounced off of him.  “What are you...whoa, indeed,” he echoed, leering at Hermione.

Hermione ignored Sirius, though, and stared at James.  Godric’s ghost, but what everyone said really was true - Harry was almost a carbon copy of his father.  Same messy hair, same build, even the same way he stared at her, wide-eyed - it was the same way Harry stared at her whenever she did powerful magic.  Part shock, part awe, with a dash of instinctual fear.  

Everything but his eyes.  These eyes were a warm, laughing hazel, not the deep emerald green she was used to seeing behind crooked glasses.

She felt her heart clench tightly in her chest, and a deep wave of homesickness for her best friend washed over her like a tsunami.  She missed Harry the way an amputee missed his lost limb - with a visceral kind of pain that haunted her at the most inopportune moments.

“Moony has a girlfriend?” the two boys said in unison, James shocked and Sirius teasingly.

In a move copied straight from Minerva, Hermione closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, and let out a deep sigh that clearly said  _ I cannot believe the stupidity coming out of your mouth right now _ .  The two dark-headed boys closed their jaws with nearly audibly snaps and stared at Hermione.

In an aggrieved tone, Hermione said, “My name is Hermione Morgan.  I just transferred to Hogwarts, and Professor McGonagall arranged for Remus to help me catch up with the curriculum for the NEWTs-level classes I wish to take.”  It was a believable lie, and it slid easily off of her tongue.

Hope quickly picked up the thread of Hermione’s story.  "And they have quite a bit of work to do,” she said, giving the boys a stern look.  “So I’m afraid Remus won’t be able to come over and play today,” she said, slightly sarcastically

“Mu-um,” Remus whinged, a slight blush bringing color back to his cheeks.

Hermione didn’t want to come between the three friends, though, so she followed her instincts and stood from the table.  “It’s quite alright, Hope. I probably need to go back anyway. Auntie Min wanted to go to Diagon Alley this afternoon.”

“Auntie Min?” Remus echoed disbelievingly.  “Please call her that in class,” he begged, a hint of a mischievous grin on his face.

“Do I look stupid? She’s going to go extra-hard on me,” Hermione responded, scowling at him.  

She made a pulling motion with each hand and wandlessly summoned a scrap of parchment and a ballpoint pen.  “If you’d rather come to me to study, owl me and let me know. I can connect you to my Floo,” she offered, handing him her address written on the paper.

Remus stood and took it.  “Maybe...later this week?” he offered.  Hermione nodded at him. After a moment of hesitation, he darted forward and gave her a brief, awkward hug.  Hermione hid her grin behind her hand - this Remus was just as awkward about physical contact as adult Remus was, and it was somehow comforting to see that even though some things were changing, some things were staying the same.

Hope stood as well, and came around the table to wrap Hermione in a much more solid hug.  “Don’t be a stranger, now,” she said firmly as she released a surprised Hermione.

“I won’t,” Hermione promised.  With a final wave to the Lupins, she slid around the still-staring James and Sirius and Flooed back to the castle.

 

* * *

 

Sirius’ eyes followed the strange, meek-looking girl as she walked past him and James, through the living room, to the fireplace that was connected to the Floo.  Her shoulders were slightly hunched over as she walked, and she held the edges of her too-large tartan robes closely together, as if trying to shield herself from the boys’ view.  Her voice was barely a murmur, too faint for even Sirius’ advanced hearing to pick up, as she stated her destination and she stepped into the green flames.

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence as James and Sirius stood in the kitchen doorway, both staring at Remus, who stared back at them with hard eyes.

Hope interrupted the silence.  “I think it might rain soon,” she said, wincing slightly as she ran a hand over her hip.  “I’m going to go bring the laundry in,” she said, running a hand over Remus’ shoulder before quietly slipping out the back door.  

“Who was that?” James asked curiously as he sprawled at the kitchen table and helped himself to some pumpkin juice.

Sirius, still a little sore from his healing rib fractures (one of Charlus Potter’s thestrals had caught him with a vicious kick), lowered himself a little more gingerly into one of the chairs.  James automatically poured him a glass of pumpkin juice as well and put it in easy reach.

“Hermione,” Remus answered succinctly as he stabbed a sausage with a little more force than necessary.

Remus looked...surprisingly  _ not  _ like shit, considering it was the day after the full moon.  He was still a little paler than normal, but his eyes were bright and not bloodshot, and Sirius couldn’t see any new scars on his arms or face.

Sirius suddenly realized that he and James hadn’t spoken to Remus in a  _ month _ . That’s thirty  _ days  _ of silence, when they usually barely went a few  _ hours  _ without speaking.  Of course, he’d been a little caught up in his own life, what with leaving his bigoted pureblood family for good and moving in with the Potters, but that still wasn’t an excuse.  

Remus was one of his best mates, and they should have checked up on him.  Especially after everything that had happened, last full moon.

James plowed on, oblivious to Remus’ angry eyes and Sirius’ growing sense of unease.  “Well, mate, it has been a crazy month! Sirius gave ole Wally the proverbial,” he made a crude gesture, “and is now living with us! And I talked to Dad, and he’s agreed to help find Pete a tutor-”

Remus growled and cut James off.  “I don’t want to hear anything about Pettigrew!” he snapped.

“What? Why?” James asked, mouth hanging open.

“He...he tried to turn me into the monster everyone says I am!” Remus said, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper so Hope couldn’t hear them through the open window.

“What? No, he didn’t,” James argued.

“It was just a prank against Snivellus,” Sirius protested.

“He tried to trick me. Into mauling someone.  Into  _ turning  _ someone,” Remus ground out through gritted teeth.  “I don’t see how that’s  _ funny _ .”

Sirius could feel pieces coming together in his mind, much in the way they did when he came up with an idea for a prank.  “We did agree not to use one another in a prank  without their permission,” he said quietly, remembering the time that he’d pranked James, second year, into confessing his love for another girl in front of Lily, and how devastated he’d been at the absolutely  _ betrayed  _ look on James’ face.  It had been the first time Sirius truly understood that there were lines you didn’t cross with your friends, and Lily was that line for James, just like his lycanthropy was the line for Remus.

Before James could formulate a rebuttal, Remus pushed back from the table.  “I’d better go help my mum,” he said tersely as he cleared his dishes from the table and put them in the sink.  Ignoring his two friends, he slipped out the back door as well.

“It was just a prank,” James said weakly, turning to stare at Sirius with wide hazel eyes.

Sirius shifted uncomfortably in his chair.  “Maybe we should just...let Moony calm down.  He’s PMS-ing still,” Sirius joked.

“Yeah, I guess,” James agreed reluctantly.  “C’mon, let’s head back to the Manor. Maybe Mum will let you get on a broom today.”  Both boys stood, and put their cups in the sink as well. 

As they walked through the living room to the Floo, Sirius caught the faintest whiff of a strange-but-familiar scent: wild honey and poppies, still intoxicating though it was barely in the air.

Sirius looked around the room, taking in the familiar shabby furniture and Muggle electronics.  “Do you smell that?” he asked James, but his question was lost in the roar of the green flames. Shrugging to himself, Sirius tossed a handful of Floo powder in and called out “Potter Manor!” as well.

Dorea Potter was waiting for them when they landed at the Manor.  “Now, boys, what have I told you about Flooing without permission?” she said sternly.

“Sorry, mum,” they both mumbled in unison.

“James, I thought you were going to help your father in the stables today,” she chastised.  “And you,” she said, turning to Sirius. “Let me look at those ribs.”

James rolled his eyes behind her back, and Dorea shot a mild stinging hex over her shoulder without ever turning around.  James yelped, Sirius barked out a laugh, and it was Dorea’s turn to roll her eyes. “Go help your father,” she ordered.

“Yes, mum,” James grumbled, rubbing his arse as he headed out of the room, and Sirius stifled another snort of laughter.

Dorea poked and prodded him, raising and lowering his arms and twisting his torso as she cast a string a diagnostic spells.  As she inspected him, Sirius thought long and hard about what Remus had said.

Sirius had sworn to himself, the moment that Charlus and Dorea had told him he could stay permanently, that he was going and try to be the kind of son, the kind of  _ man  _ that they would be proud of.  The two of them, they were everything pureblooded witches and wizards were supposed to be: clever, kind, knowledgeable, welcoming, and so damn  _ powerful _ without it ever being at someone else’s expense.  Compared to the kind of anti-muggle, sacred twenty-eight  _ only  _ rhetoric he’d grown up with, Charlus and Dorea were almost like one of the heroes he’d read about in the Muggle comics he’d sneakingly read as a kid - doing what was right, what was  _ good _ , instead of what was proper and expected.

(His parents had always wanted to be gods, but Sirius had realized rather quickly that the gods were the cause of most, if not all, of the problems in stories.  Odysseus could have gone home to his wife, Herakles could have been happily married, Agave never would have killed her own son if the gods had simply kept to Mount Olympus and not tried to meddle in things they did not understand.)

Sirius fiddled with the earring he’d stupidly gotten while drunk last Christmas break.  He rolled the small hoop back and forth between his fingers as he thought about the last month, Remus and his parents and James and  _ his  _ parents and Peter and even the strange girl in the woods.

Dorea sighed.  “It’s a good thing you weren’t sorted into Slytherin, my darling, because your thoughts are clearly written across your face,” she said, a trace of humor in her voice.  “Go ahead, tell me about it,” she encouraged him.

“Mum, I think I fucked up,” he said shakily.

Dorea arched one dark auburn brow at him, the move so very much like Walburga’s that Sirius almost shuddered in discomfort.  She noticed how he froze, and gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s not how you mess something up, it’s how you fix it. Have you fixed it?”

Sirius shook his head, gray eyes wide and sad.

Dorea gently guided him to one of the couches, pushing him down and sitting next to him.  Sirius folded himself up on the couch, a sudden case of nerves washing over him. What if...what if Mum thought he was a horrible person and kicked him out? He’d been the one to suggest tricking Sni-Severus to Peter, though Pete had been the one to actually carry it out.  He’d known what Peter was doing, and hadn’t done anything to stop it.

Hands tugged at him, and Sirius suddenly found himself with his head on Dorea’s lap, her long fingers carding through his shaggy hair.  As she stroked his scalp, the words came tumbling out of him, starting with what Severus had said to Lily, and winding all the way to their earlier trip to Lupin Cottage, and finishing by vocalizing all of his fears.  By the end of it, he’d spotted her robes with tears and was suddenly embarrassed.

“Shh, Sirius, you’re fine,” Dorea soothed as he struggled to push himself up, and she forced him to lay back down.  “I’m not going to kick you out for making a childish mistake. Yes, it was cruel, but you’ve at least acknowledged that, if only to yourself.”

“But what do I do?” he asked, voice watery.

“I think…” she paused, forming her words carefully.  “You’ve been through quite a lot these last few months.  But it is what you choose to do in reaction to those circumstances that will determine the kind of person you are going to be. I think that you should spend the rest of the summer thinking long and hard about the kind of man you want to be, and what kind of choices you want to make about your friends in the coming times.”

There’s a heaviness to her words that Sirius could not miss, and he realized that she was speaking about more than just the situation with Remus and Peter.  She was talking about his parents, too, and the whispers of a war that have been hanging heavy on the horizon like storm clouds.

“I have faith that you will make the right choice, but I cannot make it for you.  You have to decide what to do next, and I have a feeling it won’t be easy.”

“It never is,” he murmured sorrowfully.

“Maybe not,” Dorea agreed with a thoughtful hum, “but you are a Gryffindor, after all.  I think you’ll be brave enough to make it,” she said wryly, before bending and brushing a kiss to his forehead, full of maternal love and affection.

“Thanks, Mum,” he whispered, knuckling away the tears in his eyes.

“Now,” she said briskly, pulling him up from her lap.  “Go help James muck out the stables, and try not to get kicked this time?” she said, pursing her lips.

“How’m I supposed to do that if I can’t see the bloody things?” he grumbled as he stood up from the couch.  He yelped when a stinging hex hit his arse, and shot Dorea an incredulous look over his shoulder.

“If you’re going to be living under my roof, you will watch your language,” she said primly, but her gray eyes were sparkling at him.

“Whatever you say, Mum,” he replied, stressing the last word and grinning at her as he skipped out of the room.

 

* * *

Meanwhile, at the Lupin cottage, a similar conversation was being held between Remus and Hope as they pulled sheets off the clothesline and folded them.  Haltingly, and without making eye contact, Remus told her about the showdown at the edge of the Black Lake, his unwillingness to stand up to his friends, about Peter and Severus, and about the nerve-wracking conversation he’d had with Dumbledore and his father, the next afternoon.

“Darling,” Hope said gently, resting a hand on Remus’ arm as he picked up one of the laundry baskets.  She waited until he made eye contact with her, and then said, in her most no-nonsense voice, “None of this is your fault.”

“But I didn’t- and I would’ve-” he stuttered.

“You didn’t tell that boy to go down to the Whomping Willow, and you didn’t bite him.  You are not to blame for this,” she said firmly.

“What do I do about...about my friends?” he asked hesitatingly.

Hope paused, forcing her monumental anger at Remus’ little band of friends deep down inside her.  They had tried to ruin her baby’s life, and it was all she could do not to track them down and show them  _ exactly  _ what a Muggle like her could do to them.  

They were just boys, just  _ children _ at the end of the day, though.  What they’d done was a childish mistake, decisions made through a lens of childish experiences.  As an adult, all she could do was hope that they all grew from this, older and wiser and hopefully a bit more compassionate as well.

“They hurt you, Ree, I won’t disagree with you on that.  But Ree, you are not responsible for their actions, only your own.  If they grow from this incident,  _ truly  _ grow up a little and take responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made, I would suggest that you forgive them.  They are your friends, after all. If they don’t, then, oh well. You have other friends, don’t you?” she said pointedly, eyes flicking back towards the kitchen where they’d sat with Hermione not long ago.

“Even Peter?”

“Hell no,” she said vehemently, startling her son so badly that he dropped the laundry basket back onto the ground.  “He put you in harm’s way, and there’s no forgiving that. Friends don’t sacrifice their friends just to win a battle,” she said firmly.

Remus studied his mother carefully.  Her eyes had glazed over, looking at something beyond him, something from memory.  Her jaw was clenched tightly, and her spine was as stiff as a board. Her hand hovered over her pocket, and if she wasn’t a muggle he would’ve thought that she was reaching for a wand.  For the first time he could ever remember, his quiet, gentle mum looked a bit...frightening. Not in the way Dorea Potter could be frightening, with her pureblood manners and devious Slytherin grin - it was almost as if, in that moment, Hope was more of a wolf than he was, fierce and dangerous and ready to pounce.

She shook herself out of whatever reverie she was in, stance relaxing as she bent to pick up the laundry basket he’d dropped.  “Come on, let’s go in. Rain’s about to hit,” she said knowingly as she trudged back inside, Remus dutifully on her heels as thunder rumbled ominously overhead.

Hope and Remus spent the rainy afternoon curled up in the living room, watching old movies and napping.  Hope made them a filling supper of stew, and sent Remus off to bed early while she waited for her husband to return home.

Lyall finally Flooed home well after dark, smelling faintly like Firewhiskey - as was his usual after a full moon.  He always tried to drown his guilt over Remus’ condition and his disgust at the wolf Remus became, leaving her to soothe and heal a tired, heartworn Remus.

Hope watched him coldly from her vantage point at the kitchen table, reflexes and spatial awareness honed for the dark after her years in the SOE.  He stumbled towards the kitchen, wandpoint lit as he walked towards the doorway. When he reached the door, Hope threw the dinner knife she’d been idly playing with.  It landed in the wooden door frame, mere centimeters from the shell of Lyall’s ear, and wobbled slightly.

He froze, and Hope could see the wand tremble ever-so-slightly in his hand.

“The next time you make my son feel like a monster…” she said, her voice ice cold in the humid summer night, “I will show you what a monster  _ really  _ looks like.”

He’d taken his disgust out on Remus last month, apparently, telling her sweet baby boy that he really was a monster that shouldn’t be allowed around other students.

Lyall thought he lived with a monster? Well, she’d prove him right. 

She stood and walked sedately through the dark kitchen, pausing briefly by Lyall’s side.  “Look in the mirror, Lyall” she whispered harshly in his ear. “You are the true monster.”

It was not circumstances that make a monster.  

It was  _ choices. _   
  
  
  



End file.
